Toto - Africa

[Better Midlands]

No question it's an awesome song.

I overheard my 25 year old daughter singing it to herself the other day and whilst sitting in the street today I heard a late teen girl singing it with her headphones on whilst cycling (I live just outside Amsterdam). I know it was revived for the Vaporwave crew on the Chuck Person Ecojams LP and that it is a big youtube meme, but those scenes are most defiantly not my daughter. I can see that it was on Stranger Things soundtrack. It seems to have broken out of the internet into mainstream consciousness.

Anyone know why?

[Z]

I feel like it's never really slipped out of the mainstream. I guess it's possible it's drifted away from constant play on radio to a point that a new show/film/whatever can introduce it to younger people (25 ain't young though) but the usage in things like Eccojams was surely moreso deliberately picking an extremely ubiquitous song that everyone kinda likes more than anything else.

[Better Midlands]

My kids wouldn't even be able to turn on a radio - it would have to be a Spotify playlist or something.

It's always been a bit of a Balearic Beat, but the first revival I heard was this fantastic Late Night Tuff Guy edit from 2012


https://soundcloud.com/late-nite-tuff-guy/bless-the-rains-lntg-epic

[Bhazor]

[Dr Syntax Head]

It was on an advert relatively recently. That is why.

[bgmnts]

Advert but its a classic piece of 80s shit that never went away.


Not my favourite Toto track but its a belter.

[alan nagsworth]

I forgot this one existed and you've made my evening by reminding me, thanks.

Meme culture has definitely helped boost it into the minds of people who would ordinarily strike it off as vintage pap (which I certainly have been guilty of in the past) but through repetition it starts gradually ticking the boxes of "oh that's quite a good riff actually", then "hey that chorus is a bit great isn't it?" until eventually "fuck me, this song is an absolute hoofer, obviously it is, why hadn't I realised until now?"

Vaporwave was pretty instrumental in that sort of thing. Personally, hearing Pages - You Need A Hero chopped and screwed on that Macintosh Plus album steered me to a song I almost certainly never would have heard otherwise in my life. And what a song it is.

[Shit Good Nose]

This added to its latter day popularity as well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLrC7e3vSv8

And, unlike Toto, they didn't need live Autotune to help them.

[Better Midlands]

It was on an advert relatively recently. That is why.

{{Citation needed}}

Both my daughter and the bike girl live in Holland. Doesn't mean it wasn't on an advert here - teenage bike girl still seeked it out for her bike sing a long.

[the]

One thing to be said about it is that I only have to read the words "Toto - Africa" and it starts playing in my head. Very evocative, although not necessarily good.

Fun fact: sometimes when very bored I'll re-enact the Eccojams version, singing it pitched down and deliberately slurring the words so it sounds like "my arse is waiting here for you". This amuses me and I hope this anecdote will provide some depth when it's included in a future Toto biography.

If you've ever tried to do it at karaoke/on Singstar however, it becomes apparent how tepid and one-note most of the chorus is.

It brings a warm familiarity when you do hear it, but I don't think there's a technical reason why you would ever need to hear it again.

[Better Midlands]

Vaporwave was pretty instrumental in that sort of thing. Personally, hearing Pages - You Need A Hero chopped and screwed on that Macintosh Plus album steered me to a song I almost certainly never would have heard otherwise in my life. And what a song it is.

I played my Sade loving wife Macintosh Plus - ブート the other day.

Unsurprisingly she thought it was fucking shit.

[up_the_hampipe]

25 ain't young though

I'm 25 on Sunday. Thanks for triggering a quarter life crisis.

[Sebastian Cobb]

what makes you think you're living to 100?

[bgmnts]

what makes you think you're living to 100?

Yeah I tell people I wasted a third of my life and they look at me eyebrow raised. As if living to 100 is more likely than 75.

[Better Midlands]

I'm 25 on Sunday. Thanks for triggering a quarter life crisis.

She's my middle child and still my baby - you're good.

[Dr Syntax Head]

It's in the same musical family as the likes of Don't you forget about me or with or without you. They are just always there, somewhere in the ether.

[Sebastian Cobb]

It's in the same musical family as the likes of Don't you forget about me or with or without you. They are just always there, somewhere in the ether.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAsLDf-tYlg

[Jockice]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAsLDf-tYlg

One of the greatest singles ever made, that is.

And she co-wrote Our Lips Are Sealed. These two things, as far as I'm concerned, qualify her for sainthood.

[Norton Canes]

[Wet Blanket]

There's a certain sorts of crepuscular 80s music that makes me feel despondent. I think it's because as a little kid during that decade, certain songs would always tend to get played during the winding down of a party or family occasion. 'Eternal Flame' is one, and 'Africa' is another. People always go 'Wahey! What a banger!' to this song but it makes me want to cry.

[greenman]

As a geography student I could never let it lie that Kilimanjaro is actually about 200 miles away from the Serengeti.

Best thing Toto ever did by a country mile was the Dune soundtrack, not entirely convinced Eno didn't lock them in a broom cupboard and do it all himself.

[Icehaven]

(25 ain't young though)

You're either still too young to realise that it really, really is, or too old and bitter to admit that it really, really is.

[SteveDave]

It's awful. The bane of my DJing life.

YOU (clapping hands) CAN (clapping hands) NOT (clapping hands) DANCE (clapping hands) TO (clapping hands) THIS (clapping hands) SONG.

[Dr Rock]

I have seen Africa on the TV many, many times. It is never raining.

[studpuppet]

It's in the same musical family as the likes of Don't you forget about me or with or without you. They are just always there, somewhere in the ether.

I always conflate it with Foreigner's I Want To Know What Love Is (loud, high, long note on the chorus, breathy synths in the quiet bits)

[samadriel]

I'm a bit sick of the original, but I liked this: https://youtu.be/f1Vvx3WdYOo

[gilbertharding]

I must be the wrong age. To me it was 80s MOR/old people's music when it came out, and not in a good way. Not able to work past that, though stranger things have happened.

[studpuppet]

I must be the wrong age. To me it was 80s MOR/old people's music when it came out, and not in a good way. Not able to work past that, though stranger things have happened.

No - you are completely right. The trouble is that these sort of songs were also ubiquitous at the time (airplay on Radios 1 & 2), to such an extreme that I once astounded someone who's known me since childhood by repeating the lyrics to Peter Cetera's You're The Inspiration verbatim. In fact I still troll my wife by singing them to her when I really want to annoy her ("YOU BRING MEANING TO MY LIFE!!").

[TheMonk]

Something oddly affecting about hearing it like this. Its natural habitat.
https://youtu.be/D__6hwqjZAs

[studpuppet]

Something oddly affecting about hearing it like this. Its natural habitat.
https://youtu.be/D__6hwqjZAs

And nearly a million views on this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuiwIFLKa2I